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Evan & Tiki

Hour 4: Yankees Re-Sign Cody Bellinger as Mets Pivot & Giants Enter Harbaugh Era

Evan & Tiki

Audacy

Sports

4.2988 Ratings

🗓️ 21 January 2026

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Evan Roberts and Tiki Barber break down a wild day in New York sports. The Yankees finally re-sign Cody Bellinger to a five-year deal, bringing relief to Bronx fans after a quiet offseason. The Mets pivot with a Luis Robert Jr. trade, signaling that Cody was never headed to Queens and raising questions about David Stearns’ long-term philosophy. Plus, Giants fans continue to buzz after John Harbaugh’s official introduction as head coach, Knicks fans grow uneasy amid a slump, and Evan explains why the Yankees could actually be better in 2026 despite the lack of splashy moves. All that and more on WFAN’s Evan & Tiki.

Transcript

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0:00.0

There is a lot going on on this really, really, really called Wednesday.

0:05.5

Yesterday, John Harbaugh was officially introduced as the giant head coach.

0:09.2

The giant fans are still beaming from the news of yesterday.

0:12.7

Nick fans, as we just talked about, very worried about their current play, and they take on the

0:16.5

tanking Brooklyn Nets later tonight at Madison Square Garden.

0:20.5

And then late last night, the New York Mets made a trade, which is a very good sign for the New York Yankees.

0:25.8

They acquired Luis Robert Jr. for Luis San Halakunia.

0:29.0

And Luis Robert Jr. will hopefully have a bounce back season after two down years with Chicago.

0:34.6

And a change of scenery will help him.

0:36.7

And the New York Mets have essentially, barring something unforeseen, have finished off the

0:43.1

artwork of the position player group.

0:45.6

And I mentioned this at the top of the show and I stand by it, which is the Mets probably

0:50.8

made a big offer to Cody Bellinger and they do not expect him to take it, which we talked about the other day and said, why would he? I mean, he's 31. He's going to take a short-term high-A-AV offer from the Mets as opposed to what has been widely reported, mainly because the Yankees couldn't wait to leak it out, a five-year, $160, $165 million deal from the Yankees?

1:12.8

The MET offer is not better.

1:14.1

And the Mets situation is not better.

1:16.6

So what we learned, I think, by the Robert trade is that the Mets expect Cody Bellinger to pick the Yankees.

1:25.3

And Yankee fans, as we sit here in the middle of January,

1:28.8

and you literally have added one player from outside of your organization via trade with the Miami Marlins in Ryan Weathers,

1:37.5

I expect that you're going to get Cody Bellinger back soon.

1:41.7

And what I don't know is your reaction to it is going to be what? Sense of relief, happiness, celebration, like, it's not celebration. It'll be relief and happiness from the standpoint of, all right, the Yankees are set to compete and try to go be the best team in the American League next year. And we'll worry about a World Series when we get to one. Which I find interesting because at the beginning of the off season, we did this fun thing where I said, all everybody lay out your Yankee plan. And we all had really extensive plans. Unless the Yankees make another move, they trade for Freddie Peralta, something like that, they haven't done any of it. They haven't. So was the bar set so low that if they just bring Cody back, you would be like, all right, I'm good. Even though if I told you that in November, you would not have been happy. Yes, but remember in November, and I think at the time we did this, I also did not expect Trent Grisham to accept the qualifying offer. And I think that threw everything into a wrench. that was $20 million locked up. So I think that changed everything. So they need Bellinger's bat at this point. And they mainly need it because Bichette is gone. Tucker is gone. Any backup plan they would have had is off the board. So if he goes in touch with Toronto now, what do they do? Well, I'm going to tell you something that's really boring but really true. and I don't think people really want to hear it, but I'm being real as we get closer to the baseball season. The New York Yankees have a real chance to be significantly better than they were last year, even though they won 94 games and having out a sexy offseason. How you ask? It's kind of simple. How? Oh, is that a real how? How? How? because you have a lot of young players who could get significantly better.

3:11.9

Yes.

3:12.3

Starting with Jason Dominguez, who didn't really get that full opportunity a year ago,

...

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